{"id":{"repo_id":"gsu","oai_identifier":"oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1578"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/gsu/oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1578","repository":{"repo_id":"gsu","name":"Georgia Southern University","base_url":"https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Complicated Conversations on the Dis/Ease of Mental Illness: The Ebb and Flow of Bipolar Disorder","abstract":"This work is a conversation about mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. It is a complicated, convoluted conversation that covers a broad spectrum of facets. The central theme is to uncover the role that bipolar disorder has played in impacting schools, communities, and families and how that role aggravates and perplexes students, teachers, parents, community leaders. This dissertation does not try to create any answers or solutions. It is an investigation, an exploration of why mental illness creates such confusion in our minds. How did this confusion develop and what perpetuates its continuation? Can or even should we, consider it a medical issue or a social issue or some of both? If there is a continuum between sanity and madness, normal and abnormal, what or who determines our own, or even another person's placement along that line? The intent and focus of this research will be to uncover what cannot be covered over: the integration, the significance, the impact of the past on the present on the future. To separate the past, present, and future which are inextricably tied together is to fragment and dehumanize not only the process of education but individuals themselves. While \"curriculum theory [is] a distinctive specialization within the broad field of education\" (Pinar, 2004, p. 2), it includes a recognition of the importance of the psychic life of those involved, something that cannot be measured on standardized tests or other measures of accountability. It becomes, then, unconscionable and unethical to teach subject matter that covers over the individual's matter, the unconscious, the memories (Morris, 2004, p. 84). Recognizing the messiness that occurs within the confines of a classroom, a home, a boardroom, these different realities urge one to delve deeper into the spaces that invite an examination of lived experience and an evaluation of its complicated role in teaching and learning. Incorporating a psychoanalytic framework and utilizing the work of disability theorists combine and surround the conversation by inclusion of the personal and the social, the internal and the external, including the physical and mental environment.","abstract_html":"This work is a conversation about mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. It is a complicated, convoluted conversation that covers a broad spectrum of facets. The central theme is to uncover the role that bipolar disorder has played in impacting schools, communities, and families and how that role aggravates and perplexes students, teachers, parents, community leaders. This dissertation does not try to create any answers or solutions. It is an investigation, an exploration of why mental illness creates such confusion in our minds. How did this confusion develop and what perpetuates its continuation? Can or even should we, consider it a medical issue or a social issue or some of both? If there is a continuum between sanity and madness, normal and abnormal, what or who determines our own, or even another person's placement along that line? The intent and focus of this research will be to uncover what cannot be covered over: the integration, the significance, the impact of the past on the present on the future. To separate the past, present, and future which are inextricably tied together is to fragment and dehumanize not only the process of education but individuals themselves. While "curriculum theory [is] a distinctive specialization within the broad field of education" (Pinar, 2004, p. 2), it includes a recognition of the importance of the psychic life of those involved, something that cannot be measured on standardized tests or other measures of accountability. It becomes, then, unconscionable and unethical to teach subject matter that covers over the individual's matter, the unconscious, the memories (Morris, 2004, p. 84). Recognizing the messiness that occurs within the confines of a classroom, a home, a boardroom, these different realities urge one to delve deeper into the spaces that invite an examination of lived experience and an evaluation of its complicated role in teaching and learning. Incorporating a psychoanalytic framework and utilizing the work of disability theorists combine and surround the conversation by inclusion of the personal and the social, the internal and the external, including the physical and mental environment.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Williams, Doreen Louise"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)","degree_level":"Dissertation (open access)","degree_discipline":"Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Scot Danforth","Ming Fang He","John Weaver"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-05-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2012-05-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:27:12Z","subjects":["ETD","Bipolar Disorder","Curriculum","Mental Illness","Mothering","Paternalism","Stigma","Psychoanalysis","Schooling","Aesthetic","Manic-depressive illness"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/578","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Scot Danforth","Ming Fang He","John Weaver"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Williams, Doreen Louise"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2013-10-17T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation (open access)"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["ETD","Bipolar Disorder","Curriculum","Mental Illness","Mothering","Paternalism","Stigma","Psychoanalysis","Schooling","Aesthetic","Manic-depressive illness"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/578"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This work is a conversation about mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. It is a complicated, convoluted conversation that covers a broad spectrum of facets. The central theme is to uncover the role that bipolar disorder has played in impacting schools, communities, and families and how that role aggravates and perplexes students, teachers, parents, community leaders. This dissertation does not try to create any answers or solutions. It is an investigation, an exploration of why mental illness creates such confusion in our minds. How did this confusion develop and what perpetuates its continuation? Can or even should we, consider it a medical issue or a social issue or some of both? If there is a continuum between sanity and madness, normal and abnormal, what or who determines our own, or even another person's placement along that line? The intent and focus of this research will be to uncover what cannot be covered over: the integration, the significance, the impact of the past on the present on the future. To separate the past, present, and future which are inextricably tied together is to fragment and dehumanize not only the process of education but individuals themselves. While \"curriculum theory [is] a distinctive specialization within the broad field of education\" (Pinar, 2004, p. 2), it includes a recognition of the importance of the psychic life of those involved, something that cannot be measured on standardized tests or other measures of accountability. It becomes, then, unconscionable and unethical to teach subject matter that covers over the individual's matter, the unconscious, the memories (Morris, 2004, p. 84). Recognizing the messiness that occurs within the confines of a classroom, a home, a boardroom, these different realities urge one to delve deeper into the spaces that invite an examination of lived experience and an evaluation of its complicated role in teaching and learning. Incorporating a psychoanalytic framework and utilizing the work of disability theorists combine and surround the conversation by inclusion of the personal and the social, the internal and the external, including the physical and mental environment."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Complicated Conversations on the Dis/Ease of Mental Illness: The Ebb and Flow of Bipolar Disorder"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Scot Danforth","Ming Fang He","John Weaver"],"dc:creator":["Williams, Doreen Louise"],"dc:date.available":["2013-10-17T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["This work is a conversation about mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. It is a complicated, convoluted conversation that covers a broad spectrum of facets. The central theme is to uncover the role that bipolar disorder has played in impacting schools, communities, and families and how that role aggravates and perplexes students, teachers, parents, community leaders. This dissertation does not try to create any answers or solutions. It is an investigation, an exploration of why mental illness creates such confusion in our minds. How did this confusion develop and what perpetuates its continuation? Can or even should we, consider it a medical issue or a social issue or some of both? If there is a continuum between sanity and madness, normal and abnormal, what or who determines our own, or even another person's placement along that line? The intent and focus of this research will be to uncover what cannot be covered over: the integration, the significance, the impact of the past on the present on the future. To separate the past, present, and future which are inextricably tied together is to fragment and dehumanize not only the process of education but individuals themselves. While \"curriculum theory [is] a distinctive specialization within the broad field of education\" (Pinar, 2004, p. 2), it includes a recognition of the importance of the psychic life of those involved, something that cannot be measured on standardized tests or other measures of accountability. It becomes, then, unconscionable and unethical to teach subject matter that covers over the individual's matter, the unconscious, the memories (Morris, 2004, p. 84). Recognizing the messiness that occurs within the confines of a classroom, a home, a boardroom, these different realities urge one to delve deeper into the spaces that invite an examination of lived experience and an evaluation of its complicated role in teaching and learning. Incorporating a psychoanalytic framework and utilizing the work of disability theorists combine and surround the conversation by inclusion of the personal and the social, the internal and the external, including the physical and mental environment."],"dc:identifier":["https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/578"],"dc:subject":["ETD","Bipolar Disorder","Curriculum","Mental Illness","Mothering","Paternalism","Stigma","Psychoanalysis","Schooling","Aesthetic","Manic-depressive illness"],"dc:title":["Complicated Conversations on the Dis/Ease of Mental Illness: The Ebb and Flow of Bipolar Disorder"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation (open access)"],"thesis:degree_name":["Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:27:12Z"}